Across the room Mona Merriman had taken him outside the French doors. The rain had stopped and a gentle fog turned the windows across the avenue into soft orange ovals. Sharon got up and walked up to Raul Fucia, holding her glass in front of her.
“I need a drink,” she said.
VII
“Mona Merriman,” I said, “you’re a scratchy woman. Why don’t you go get yourself a celebrity?”
“I’ve done them all, dear. You look like better copy.”
“Except that I’m a nonentity.”
“Not quite, Dogeron. I’ve already spoken to your friend Lee Shay. You see, he doesn’t dare hold things back from me. Your being an heir of Barrin Industries makes you an item.”
“Mona, an heir I am, but an inheritor I’m not. I told you I was the family bastard.”
“Even that is news,” she smiled sweetly. “After all, mine is a gossip column.”
I ran my fingers down the side of her face and pinched the skin under her chin. “Baby,” I said, “you wouldn’t want me to chew you up, would you?”
“That sounds like fun.”
“I didn’t mean that way.”
“There’s another way?” She was laughing at me now.
“Suppose I told everybody how old you are.”
Her laugh didn’t fade a bit. “Impossible!”
“Want to bet?” I asked her.
Then the smile started to ease off.
I said, “Give me one hour on the telephone and I’ll give you the place, date and time.”
She cocked her head and looked at me, not quite sure of herself. “I don’t believe it.”
“Look at my eyes, Mona,” I said.
“I see them.”
“Now you know. It’s a game I can play better than anybody you ever saw. Just nip me and I’ll bite your head off.”
“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”
“Everybody keeps telling me so,” I said.
“Would you really tell how old I am ... If you found out?”
“Just try nipping me, kid.”
“You’re interesting, Dog. How old am I?”
“Wild guess?”
“Sure.”
I let my fingers travel over her face again and felt the tiny lines. “Twenty-one,” I grinned.
“Do it again, but for real this time.”
“Sixty-two,” I said.
“You overaged me by a year, you bastard. If you tell anybody I’ll kill you.”
“If they ask you’re under thirty.”
“Shit. I love you, you crazy creep. Now I’m going and find out all about you, then you’ll be sorry.”
“Come on,” I said, “why work for it. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
Mona Merriman looked into her near-empty glass, swirled the contents around a few times, then met my eyes. “Have you ever killed anybody?”
I nodded.
“Want to speak about it?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Guess I got me a live one. You know what I’d like to do to you?”
“Naturally. I always have trouble with you young broads. Pick on somebody your own age.”
“Okay, killer. Now one little kiss and let’s go back inside.”
Her lips barely brushed mine, but I could feel the tiger behind them and all the real want that was there. The little pubic touch, the outthrust chest that tried so hard to initiate the nipples into a semiorgasm behind the engineering of elastic and fabric. Twenty years ago she could have been fun.
So I grabbed her arm, kissed her right, just once, and she went all tight at first, then to pieces, and I got that funny little-girl look and said, “No more, Mona. You and I have a generation gap.”
“I’d like to gap you.”
“But you won’t. Now behave.”
“Bastards I have to run into,” she smiled “I’m going to take you apart, Mr. Kelly.”
“It’s been tried before.”
“By experts?”
“By experts,” I said.
“You only think so, Mr. Kelly.” Her hand dropped from my shoulder, reached down and felt me, then went back to my shoulder again. “My, you are impervious.”
“Not really, doll. I just pick my own time and place.”
“Let’s go back. I want some friends of mine to meet you.”
Walt Gentry saw us step across the sill of the French doors into the alcoholic hubbub of the room, waved and excused himself from the couple he had been talking to and ambled over in that loose-limbed stride of his. He gripped my hand and shook it with a grin and a wink toward Mona. “Good to see you again, Dog. It’s been awhile.”
“Same here, Walt.”
“Mona got her hooks into you already?”
She gave his arm a pinch and faked a pout. “You could have prepared me for this beast, Walter. He’s a refreshing change from the usual group.”
“That’s because I’m a commoner,” I said.
“You back to stay?” Walt asked me.
“Could be.”
“Things get a little dull on the Continent?”
I shrugged, trying to remember the last twenty-some years. “What’s excitement one time gets to be pretty routine the next. Maybe I’m like the salmon coming back to spawn where it was born.”
“And die,” Mona added. “They always die after they spawn. Is that why you came back, Dog?”
“Dying isn’t my bag, lady. At least not yet.”
“Ah, an item. You’ve come home to spawn. And who will be your spawnee?”
Walt laughed and patted her shoulder. “Mona, my girl, must you always look at the sexual side of things?”
“It’s the interesting-item side, dear boy. My readers eat it up. We have an extremely provocative and eligible bachelor in our midst, so naturally I’m curious.” She looked at me, still smiling. “You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Kelly.”
“I haven’t given it any thought, either.”
“No lonely heart waiting for your return?”
“Can’t remember any. Most people were glad to see me go.”
Walt waved a miniskirted waitress over with the drink tray, and when we picked up our glasses said, “Don’t let all that Barrin Industries background fool you, Mona. Dog here was born a hundred years too late. There aren’t many places for a real live charger anymore. He was glad to be booted out.”
“And who is getting the boot?” a quiet voice asked.
We all turned and nodded at the weathered face of the heavy-set man behind us. “Mona, Walt ...” he said.
“Dick Lagen, Dog Kelly. I don’t think you’ve met.”
I held out my hand and he took it politely for a second. “I’m a regular reader of yours, Mr. Lagen.”
“Ah, at last someone interested in news with an international flavor.”
“That’s more than he said of my literary gems,” Mona told him.
Lagen smiled and ran a forefinger across his hairline moustache. “Mona, dear, we are hardly competitors. It is he with a bent for finance that is interested in the news I report. Is that not true, Mr. Kelly?”
There was an odd note to his tone and his eyes were watching me carefully. “Pursuit of the buck is a necessary evil. I’m always glad to break even,” I said.
“I understand you’ve come back to claim an inheritance.”
I let out a laugh. “Ten big G’s. How did you know about that?”
Dick Lagen tasted his drink, made a satisfied pat at his mouth and said, “My earliest researches were made during the height of the Barrin regime. You’d be surprised how much I know about your family fortunes.”
“Well, as long as I get my ten grand, I’m happy. I never was much of a family man.”
“So I understand. However, ten thousand dollars isn’t much of a nest egg these days. Plan to invest it?”
“Hell, no,” I told him. “I plan to blow it. Money is no good unless you convert it into something useful or pleasurable, anyway.
”
“That’s a rich man’s attitude, Mr. Kelly.” That odd note was back in his voice again.
“You’d be surprised how rich a guy with ten grand can be.” I grinned at him and he smiled back.
“By the way, Mr. Kelly. Your name is Dogeron ... D-O-G-E-R-O-N,” he spelled it, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Unusual.”
“Old-fashioned. Not many of us left.”
“True. I’ve heard it mentioned several times however. Istanbul, Paris ... you have been there, haven’t you?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“Could it possibly be that it was the same Dogeron?”
Mona gave us both a quick, sharp glance. “Now see here, Dick, if you have something about my friend, don’t go wasting it in your portentous columns ...”
I stopped her with a laugh. “If Mr. Lagen ran across me in those places you could use the items, Mona. I’m a grade-A student of those belly dances and cancan joints. You hit those places, Mr. Lagen, and it’s a real good chance my name came up. I have a reputation of sorts too. You like the fleshpots?”
His hand touched the moustache again to cover up the flesh on his face. Mona laughed and pulled at his sleeve. “Why, Dick, you old roué, you. And here I thought you were always the proper one. Dog, dear, you’re a darling. At last I have something to hold over his head.”
Lagen let out his suppressed laugh and made a faint grimace of embarrassment. “You have caught me red-handed, Mr Kelly. Now my secret is out. I’m a rather shy voyeur. My opportunities to indulge myself are rare and discreet.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him, “your secret’s safe. I’ve already threatened Mona with exposure on one account. I’ll add this in.”
“Remarkable guest you have here, Walt,” Lagen said. “Not at all continental. Good to see you, Mr. Kelly.”
When he left, Walt said, “I hope you didn’t pinch a nerve, buddy.”
Mona tossed her hair and chuckled. “Don’t be silly. He was pleased as punch. And here we all thought he was stuffy. Dog ... what else do you do? You seem to have an odd insight into people.”
“Comes with age, lady. Besides, aren’t all men supposed to be alike?”
“If they were, you wouldn’t be with one of my age. As you told me, why don’t you pick on somebody your own size? I see any number of covetous female eyes turned in this direction. Take him around, Walt. I’m anxious to see how he can deal with all those professional little things flaunting their wares. Ah, me, for the days of firm tits and thighs again.”
“Quit kidding, Mona,” I said. “Experience more than makes up for it.”
“Get him out of here before I attack him, Walt.”
When she walked off squealing at the two current TV stars, Walt said, “Some woman.”
“Yeah.”
“Just don’t let her fool you. She’d blow the whistle on her own grandmother if there was any gossip in it. No social conscience. Same thing with Lagen. He considers himself the great crusader these days. Some senator tagged him the fiscal watchdog of unscrupulous industry and he’s trying to live up to the name.”
“What’s he doing at a bash like this?” I looked around the room. “They’re hardly his type of people.”
“As you so ruthlessly uncovered, Dick’s a girl watcher. He still gets a kick out of the show business crowd. You meet everyone?”
“Pretty much.”
“You got all the guys jumpy. They have their territory all staked out and now they’re waiting to see which one is going to get his claim snaked out from under his nose.”
“Where’s Lee?”
“Out at the bar lining up a couple of in-town celebrities to do guest shots on TV commercials. What’s he so rattled about?”
“Beats me.”
“He acted like he was afraid to leave you alone. I thought you were the big brother type in the old days.”
I grinned at him. “Lee worries too much. He ought to get married.”
“Look who’s talking,” Walt said. “Incidentally, who are you going to lay your paws on tonight. Even I’m interested. They’re all available, you know. Well, almost all.”
“Oh?”
Walt inclined his head to the comer of the room where the blonde I had met on the way in was perched on the arm of a chair, talking to the pumpkin of a man who was one of the bigger paperback book publishers. “That one. Little iron pants. A sexual Molotov cocktail and nobody can get a match to her fuse.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Tiring is the word. Even the experts gave up on her. One was a psychiatrist and even he couldn’t reach a conclusion. Right now she has Raul flipping his lid. Until he tangled with her he thought he was the epitome in conquering maleness.”
“I heard her take him down. Everything she tell him true?”
“Everything. I can vouch for it. She left me hanging on the ropes too. Come on over and say hello. Let’s see what kind of impression you can make.”
“Let’s not. She’s a little young for this dog.”
“Consider it a change of pace.”
“Suit yourself.”
The pumpkin publisher acknowledged our introduction and left to chase down his newest acquisition who had come in like a summer storm surrounded by effete young men.
Walt said, “Sharon Cass, Dog Kelly. I’m making it formal.” He smiled in my direction. “Sharon objects to casual associations.”
Those big, brown eyes looked into mine with a twinkle and she held out her hand. “Walt’s always running me down, Mr. Kelly.”
“Call me Dog. It’s easier.”
“He tell you about my iron pants yet, Dog?”
“Why sure.”
“He’s a real squealer. It’s better when they find out for themselves.”
“Watch it,” Walt said. “One day somebody’s going to carry a can opener.”
She took her hand away gently and tilted her head at me. “Someday.”
Sharon Cass was beautiful. She was different. The beauty was as much internal as physical, but the one inside her seemed to be carefully repressed. Her hair was a tinted blonde that shimmered in soft waves around her shoulders, accentuating the full maturity of a lithe, sensual body. The miniskirt over her crossed legs ended at midthigh, lush offerings shaped to perfection, unashamedly exposed. She was frank and direct, not coming at you like most women would, and I had to laugh at her. “Walt said you’d be a change of pace.”
“Not very flattering of him.”
“Why don’t you guys talk,” Walt broke in. “I have to go play host.”
We watched him leave, then Sharon toasted us with her cocktail and said, “I think Walt deliberately sicced you on me, Dog.”
I looked at her, puzzled.
“Earlier I conned him out of five million dollars for a coproduction movie deal with Cable Howard Productions.”
“Just like that?”
“Like a lamb to the slaughter. My boss expected it to be a matter of intrigue, with the deal to be consummated in Walt’s silken-sheeted bedchamber.” She let out a little-girl giggle. “Instead, he was very nice about it. Now I think he’s avenging his actions.”
“What the hell kind of business are you in?” I asked her.
“Skin and celluloid. Cable Howard makes movies. Good ones, bad ones, but all money-makers. Walt knows he’ll double his investment.”
“And you have to put out to con in the investors?”
“It’s not a new game, Dog. Anyway, I play it by my own rules.”
“Damn!”
“Don’t tell me you’re a moralist,” she said softly.
“I don’t buy into anything under those conditions.”
“And how do you buy in?”
Her expression was one of open curiosity.
I felt my teeth showing in a tight grimace. “Forget it. Maybe I am a moralist. I have my own rules too.”
“Will they work?”
“What?”
&
nbsp; “I understand you’re one of the Barrins.”
“Word sure does get around,” I said.
“Secrets don’t last long in this place,” Sharon told me. “By tomorrow you’ll be exaggerated into a mythical European multimillionaire financier come to capture Barrin Industries for yourself. The stock market will reel under the impact of the news.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“Why, Mr. Kelly.”
“I have ten grand coming, that’s all.”
“So Lee mentioned, but it’s more fun making it millions. When do you collect?”
“I won’t. They’ll beat me out of it. My maternal grandfather left that money subject to certain conditions that make it almost impossible.”
“I like that word ‘almost,’ ” she said. “Can you make it?”
“Nothing much else to do.”
“Your smile is too gruesome, Dog. What’s up your sleeve?”
“A long arm that would like to carry you out of here.”
She put her glass down and stood up. The top of her head came up to my mouth and when she tilted her face up her eyes were shining and her lips were wet.
“All you have to do is ask,” she said.
“I’m asking.”
“Then let’s go.”
The rain had turned her into a spring blooming flower, dewy with glistening droplets of moisture. She wore no hat and let her hair tangle in the wind, not caring when she sloshed through puddles at the curb. She laughed at the night, her arm linked into mine, and the few people who passed huddling under umbrellas looked at us strangely and smiled.
We ate in an offbeat Italian restaurant, walked another six blocks to a bar where the only occupant was a bored bartender, but we ordered our drinks, excluded him politely to go back to his television and sat at the end, watching the city bathe.
The Erection Set Page 8
